This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7xc2xa7119 and/or 365 to 00-21181 filed in Republic of Korea on Apr. 21, 2000; the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to audio signal reproduction, and more particularly, to an audio reproduction apparatus having an audio modulation function, a method used by the audio reproduction apparatus, a remixing apparatus using the audio reproduction apparatus, and a method used by the remixing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of audio signal processing techniques, such as modulation and mixing, become popular in the modern entertainment industry, even creating new musical genres, such as techno or hip hop, which employ a remixing technique regarded as a novel musical performance technique for electronic sound effects.
Remixing technique refers to a technique for mixing a plurality of songs after modification (or modulation) of a particular song selected amount the plurality of songs. The speed and/or direction of reproduction is modified for the particular song, and the reproduction signal from the selected song is mixed with the reproduction signals of the other songs which are reproduced without modification. Assuming that two songs are reproduced from long-playing (LP) records seated on separate turntables, a disc jockey can modulate and reproduce an audio signal from one of the LP records by modifying the speed and direction of rotation of the corresponding turntable to provide electronic sound effects. At this time, the non-modulated audio signal, which is reproduced from the other LP record forward at a normal speed, is mixed with the modulated audio signal to produced a remixed song. Here, the term xe2x80x9cforwardxe2x80x9d corresponds to the original direction of reproduction. The technique for modulating the speed and direction of rotation of a turntable is referred to as xe2x80x9cscratchingxe2x80x9d.
A conventional remixing apparatus, which uses the remixing technique described above, uses turntables for LP records, and thus there are the following problems. First, since the needle to read an audio signal keeps in contact with an LP record through the period of intentionally varying the speed of the turntable on which the LP is mounted to rotate at a constant speed, lifetime of the needle becomes short with degraded sound quality. Also, information recorded on the LP may be lost. If the speed of rotation of the turntable is too high, the needle may jump out of the groove of the LP record mounted on the turntable.
Second, the conventional remixing apparatus cannot be applied to recording media other than LP records, such as compact discs (CDs), tapes or memories, which are rapidly emerging as new recording media alternative to LP records. If a user desires to remix a song recorded in a CD with another song recorded on an LP record using the conventional remixing apparatus, there is inconvenience in that remastering of the CD on which songs are recorded into an LP record is necessary before the remixing.
To address these limitations, Andre Rickli (Switzerland) discloses a conventional audio signal processor in WO 09701168 entitled xe2x80x9cDigital Processing Device for Audio Signalxe2x80x9d. This audio signal processor detects the speed and direction of rotation of a circular plate, which is driven at a constant speed by a motor, and read the detected speed and direction using a sensor. Reproduction of an audio signal is controlled according to the information on the detected speed and direction of rotation of the circular plate. The conventional audio signal processor uses an analog LP turntable or a circular plate similar to the LP turntable in order to detect the speed and direction, so that a mechanical driving element for driving the circular plate is needed. Use of the driving element hinders miniaturization of the audio signal processor, and increases the manufacturing cost. In addition, when a digital audio signal has a high resolution, it is not possible for a user to remix an audio signal according to the sampling rate of the digital audio signal.
Due to use of such a rotatable circular plate, the conventional audio signal processor and remixing apparatus have the following problems. First, due to the inertia of the rotating circular plate, the speed of rotation cannot be finely adjusted. Second, because only the speed and direction of rotation can be modified using information obtained from the one-dimensional trajectory, i.e., a linear distance from a point of the needle on a track of the rotating plate to the center of the rotating plate, an audio signal cannot be modulated in a variety of ways.
To address the above limitations, it is a first object of the present invention to provide an audio reproduction apparatus capable of modulating an audio signal with at least one of reproduction factors including the speed and direction of reproduction of the audio signal, and the reproduction sound pressure of the audio signal.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide an audio reproduction method for the audio reproduction apparatus having the audio modulation function.
It is a third object of the present invention to provide a remixing apparatus capable of remixing a plurality of audio signals in combination with the audio reproduction apparatus having the audio modulation function.
It is a fourth object of the present invention to provide a remixing method for the remixing apparatus.
To achieve the first object of the present invention, in one embodiment there is provided an audio reproduction apparatus having audio modulation function, for reproducing a first audio signal recorded in a predetermined first recording medium, the audio reproduction apparatus comprising: a reproduction control unit for generating a reproduction control signal by analyzing at least one of first and second displacement values, which are varied by a user, and outputting the generated reproduction control signal; and an audio reproduction unit for modulating and reproducing the first audio signal according to the reproduction control signal.
To achieve the second object of the present invention, in one embodiment there is provided an audio reproduction method for the audio reproduction apparatus, the method comprising: determining whether a user intends to modulate the first audio signal; just reproducing the first audio signal if it is determined that the user does not intend to modulate the first audio signal; and modulating and reproducing the first audio signal according to the reproduction control signal if it is determined that the user intends to modulate the first audio signal.
To achieve the third object of the present invention, in one embodiment there is provided a remixing apparatus comprising: the audio reproduction apparatus for optionally modulating the first audio signal; an audio reproducer for reproducing a second audio signal recorded in a second recording medium; and a signal synthesizer for mixing the first audio signal output from the audio reproduction apparatus, and the second audio signal output from the audio reproducer, for outputting the mixed result as a remixed audio signal.
To achieve the third object of the present invention, in one embodiment there is provided a remixing method for the remixing apparatus, the remixing method comprising: reproducing the first and second audio signals; and mixing the reproduced first and second audio signals and outputting the remixed audio signal.